Tinting a light bar?

[MAMiller44]

Before blasting me, hear me out because I promise this question actually makes sense despite what you think you're getting into.

So I'm going to be starting the facelift process on my Raptor centered around an ADD Stealth Fighter Winch bumper which houses a 40" curved light bar.

While I love my Radiance pods in the fog pockets, I keep having thoughts that maybe the Radiance 40" bar would be too much. So I'm looking at RDS. What's interesting is that the very sexy midnight RDS only outputs 35k lumens compared to it's regular lens RDS counterpart which puts out 63k. So my thought is, what about getting the regular lens and tinting it for the same look, and potentially more light? Has anyone seen this done? I'm assuming there's no way you're going to lose half the light, plus the tint will actually serve as a protective coating that could be replaced if needed. Thoughts?

 

[Oldfart]

GAY!!







I had to! I would call the company directly and ask them. If it's like window tint you could easily lose half of the light transmitted. If you figure that even light looking tint will be rated at 70%, you just lost 30%.

 

[dblack]

Tinting something that's made to put out light never seems like a good idea...

 

[MAMiller44]

@Oldfart I was going to give them
a call tomorrow to try and understand why the output is so different between the two. I’m wondering if the tint is a huge factor.

 

[Oldfart]

@Oldfart I was going to give them
a call tomorrow to try and understand why the output is so different between the two. I’m wondering if the tint is a huge factor.

I would guess that the tint would really knock it down. My windshield is 80% and you can't even tell it's tinted. It's the ceramic so I went more for the UV blocking. You would still lose 20% of your light, even with super light tint. I would be curious what they had to say though.

 

[snt505]

Lamin-X sells pre cut strips for light bars in a bunch of different colors. I have some amber film from them on my Rigid SAE fogs because I didn't feel like swapping out the entire fog light to try amber and Rigid doesn't sell lenses (also not sure they can be easily swapped). They are fine for my application, but I do agree that darker tint will definitely cut down on output.

I'd think hard about what really matters. I have a 40" Radiance bar that is on the very low end for output (somehow missed that when I bought it). However, when I have it on, I'm not sure what I would really be gaining with 2x or 4x the lumens. I can see where the greater power would improve the light spread, but as far as practicality im not sure I'm functionally losing much. Most of us are not consistently doing 80mph night runs, and even if I was I would go with some Racer spots or something separate from a bar to handle that distance.

Long story longer, I think the midnight would be the best of both worlds. Unless you can talk yourself into a situation where the 60K lumens would really make a difference.

 

[smurfslayer]

I keep having thoughts that maybe the Radiance 40" bar would be too much

LOLWUT?

I'm assuming there's no way you're going to lose half the light, plus the tint will actually serve as a protective coating that could be replaced if needed. Thoughts?

On the same logic, you only REALLY need one ********, right?

GAY!!

I’m afraid that doesn’t quite reach the level of wrong for this post...



Just sayin'

 

[WoahItsRob]

I'd say go for it, but not sure how well the protective film would protect from rocks.

Do what I am doing. I ordered a 30" Rigid Adapt light bar and bought two sets of polycarbonate lens covers, one set in smoked and one in amber. These are snap on and off so no need to worry about brightness as you can take them off.

I did a quick Google search and found some. I'm sure you could go from there and find exactly what you're looking for.

Sent from my SM-N986U using Tapatalk

 

[Oldfart]

LOLWUT?



On the same logic, you only REALLY need one ********, right?


I’m afraid that doesn’t quite reach the level of wrong for this post...



Just sayin'

 

[MAMiller44]

LOLWUT?

Too much amber lol